Birds aren't descended from dinosaurs. They 𝘢𝘳𝘦 dinosaurs. Tune in to "The Joy of Why" from @prx.org and @quantamagazine.bsky.social: www.quantamagazine.org/do-beautiful... BTW, this is our last episode of the season. See you all soon, and thanks for listening!

Physicists often ponder “how” the universe formed. But what does it even mean to ask “why” it began? Tune in to “The Joy of Why” from @prx.org and @quantamagazine.bsky.social with co-host @jannalevinastro.bsky.social: www.quantamagazine.org/why-did-the-...

How could the universe have created the conditions needed for life to emerge? Tune in to “The Joy of Why” from @prx.org and @quantamagazine.bsky.social with co-host @jannalevinastro.bsky.social.

This piece originally appeared in “When We Were Kids: How a Child Becomes a Scientists.” The book features a remarkable contributor list—Kurzweil, Dennett, Dawkins, Margulis, Dyson. I’ve included the Table of Contents at the close of this dispatch.

The theoretical physicist Thomas Hertog believes that a sort of cosmological natural selection may have evolved our universe into one that is mysteriously fine-tuned for life. Tune in to “The Joy of Why” with co-host @jannalevin:

And Now For Something Not Exactly Completely Different. The upward lightcone emanating from the origin isthe causal future and the downward lightcone is the causal past. Tune in, tune out with a rare groove and yet another level of understanding by DJ Black Helmut. Read more: jannalevin.substack.com

In How the Universe Got Its Spots, @jannalevinastro.bsky.social blends memoir & visionary science to provide a groundbreaking personal account of her life & ideas. Listen to a sample chapter and save 50% on this thrilling #audiobook with code BLOOM50 at checkout: press.princeton.edu/ideas/listen...

Ah, for more on life in the universe, we just published a conversation, Scientific Controversies: Aliens, www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLlK...

Graph theorist Maria Chudnovsky proved the strong perfect graph theorem, which was proposed back in the 1960s. Tune in to “The Joy of Why” with co-host @jannalevinastro.bsky.social:

Billions of Exoplanets, Zero Aliens? This week, a rumination on UFO’s, disharmonious species, and extraterrestrials, inspired by Scientific Controversies: Aliens, a live event I hosted recently at Pioneer Works with astronomers Adam Frank and David Kipping. open.substack.com/pub/jannalev...

I was chatting with a friend over some kind of caffeinated beverage when he asked me, “Why Black Holes?” Here is my response–after I said, “Seriously. You haven’t read my books?” Why Black Holes? by @JannaLevin open.substack.com/pub/jannalev...?

Are the Aliens Hiding? | Janna Levin and @lexfridman.bsky.social youtu.be/FcbQ3eZ6yC8?...

Death Week is upon us, a five-day descent into what awaits us six feet under. In honor of Venki Ramakrishnan’s landmark event at Pioneer Works tonight, Broadcast is taking a turn towards the existential. pioneerworks.org/broadcast/se...

Death is alive and well in Rumi’s poetry. His translator for @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social, Haleh Liza Gafori, shares her favorite of his lines on dying for PW Broadcast. pioneerworks.org/broadcast/ru...

Are large language models intelligent? Answering this question requires a messy blend of philosophy and semantics. Ellie Pavlick savors the task. Tune in to “The Joy of Why” with co-host @jannalevinastro.bsky.social: www.quantamagazine.org/will-ai-ever...

Monika Schleier-Smith is shooting clouds of atoms with laser cooling technology to understand the building blocks of gravity. Listen to “The Joy of Why” with co-host @stevenstrogatz.com:

Few authors have reshaped the landscape of speculative fiction like @nkjemisin.bsky.social. The writer joined @jannalevinastro.bsky.social at Pioneer Works to talk science vs. fiction, Far Sector, and our apocalyptic reality. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBb0...

From Far Sector to the Broken Earth Trilogy, @nkjemisin.bsky.social is constantly exploring the push and pull between innate and societal power. The writer sat down with @jannalevinastro.bsky.social to discuss how fantasy worlds can predict the future. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBb0...

“The death of an animal or a human is really the death of the vessel.” Ahead of his conversation with @jannalevinastro.bsky.social tonight, Nobel laureate Venki Ramakrishnan weighs in on the new science of dying. pioneerworks.org/broadcast/wh...

Bird brains are brilliant. Neuroscientists agree. For the latest episode of Scientific Controversies, Janna Levin sat down with ErichJarvis and Lauren Riters to discuss the fascinating neuroscience behind bird language, vocal learning, and flocking. youtu.be/b9wyVB3rGns

Ewin Tang went to college at 14. As a senior, she upended a claim about quantum computers by proving that a classical algorithm could outperform its quantum counterpart. Catch my convo with Ewin on this week’s episode of “The Joy of Why,” from @quantamagazine